Fleabag Grow Log 2025-2026

[Fleabag]

Thanks Bob, figured about as much!

For my OCD purposes I'll pretend the leathery smooth ones are Volado and then go by size and colour for the rest. I've managed to roll some nice (tasting, not so much looking) cigars from half destroyed scraps so I'm not too worried, just notice a pattern and want to figure it out. Guess I'll get the feel for it as I get my hands on more leaves and roll more sticks.

 

[Fleabag]

14th February 2006
The last couple of days have been hot and humid/raining. Tropical rain forest type weather. The new plot tobaccos have grown heaps in 3 days. One of the Criollos stalk was about 2x the length and had fallen over at the top so it now has an S bend up there. They had all started growing flower heads so I got in there and topped them and pulled any suckers I had missed previously. It's also one year and one week since I planted my first seasons ones in the ground and the hydro gutter seedlings in the glasshouse had shot away with the hot humid weather. Got rain and hot for a couple of days at least so good time to get them in the ground I reckon. Thought I would try some weed mat and see how that goes. Removed one or two leaves to expose more stalk and got them deep in the ground like the previous ones which seems to be doing pretty good.

Seedlings before de bagging and removing some of the bottom leaves.


This is the pic from the 11th Feb


This is from today after I topped and planted the seedlings. Had to get further back to fit them in the frame. The leaves of the Havanas at the front are huge now. 68 hours growth. Should have set up a camera to do time lapse.


I'll move the wind netting out a bit further when the small ones are a bit larger so I can actually get around them.


Since it is hot and muggy the dry leaves hanging up are nice and soft so I did a bit of sorting and bagging ready to speed age once all of the ones above have been finished up. Gunna keep the bags open and keep an eye on them for mould, don't want all my hard work going to waste due to leaves that are too damp.


There are still 12 seedlings in the hydro gutter that need to go somewhere so I'll probably chuck them into the original big bags with some soil amendments. Still got the bagged trailer Havana 608 top leaves to ripen but I harvested all the top leaves from the remaining Habano 2000 and one Criollo 98 a few days ago. In a couple of days the bottom suckers are growing pretty hard out so I might leave them in there and see what happens, might get some decent size leaves. The top leaves I took when chopped them were looking pretty gnarly and are yellowing pretty good.



In unrelated news, there was this weird bee I caught a week ago. Never seen one before. It was harassing the other bees on the cat mint plant in the raised garden. Did a bit of research and found it is a European wool carder bee. Sounds like the males are pretty territorial. The females take a fluff off plants and roll it into a ball and use it in their nests. It's pretty fun to watch I released it back to his spot and see it every few days

 

[Fleabag]

15th February 2026
So after all that bagging of leaves and planting of of seedlings a storm rolled down the coast that sucked a bunch of freezing cold air in. Got some serious rain to water them in which was good but also got some good wind. The temp dropped off in the evening to about 10°C over night and not much more during the day today (Monday). Checked the bagged baccy in the morning and the temp drop from low 30s inside to 20ish had made them much more humid than they needed to be. Pulled out the leaves and spread them around a bit to hopefully get some airflow going and avoid mould. Got home from work and the temp was the same, 60%RH in the inside but the leaves were still cold and feeling a little damp. A couple of leaves had the faintest beginnings of stalk mould so got the dehumidifier and fan on and did some afternoon shuffling around. Much more respectable case on them now, don't feel cold when you grab a handful of leaves. Should be good.

Managed to get some of the left over seedlings into some big bags with much more nutritious soil and popped them into the trailer tray. See how these ones turn out with some actual nutrients. Well protected from the wind again, hopefully there is still enough sun in this spot to get some good growth. They aren't very heavy so I can move them when the good weather is back.

 

[Fleabag]

28th February 2026
Hasn't been too much going on apart from letting everything grow. Weather has been hot and cold, few good rain storms here and there and my plants seem to be quite happy doing their thing. All of the newly planted ones are putting on quite a bit of size and are nice and green. The crappy seedlings hastily planted right before a cyclone into the new garden bed are flippn huge now. A good portion of the leaves are longer than my arm and are all a nice dark green. The difference having nutrients makes haha. The Florida Sumatra is starting to show signs of yellowing. Run out of nitrogen or coming ripe, guess we will see in the near future.

Trailer Havana 608s from the first crop are still in there. There upper leaves are still fresh looking though they are starting to yellow. They haven't gone gnarly looking though so I have left them on to see what happens. Not like I need a load of Havana upper leaves.


Some of the stump suckers from the original lot are getting pretty nice looking too.


These are the Havana 608 tops


The mid season storm plants, Havana 608s at front, then Criollo 98, Florida Sumatra followed by Habano 2000 at the back. There are three FS in there where as the others there are only two.


The last batch of seedlings with the weed mat which was a bit of a pain to put down. During the first few days some of them wilted in the sun and touched the weed mat and got burned on the edges, not a big loss but still something to think about. Should have just got a massive load of mulch and put a layer around everything like I usually do. They are growing fast and nice and green. The new leaves look pretty yellow but I think that is just because the grow so fast as after a few days they darken up nicely.


FS leaf showing a bit of yellowing, and a lone honey bee heading to the neighbouring Criollo 98.


My sis wanted to release the chickens from their small paddock so I had to go full Fort Knox with my wind netting to keep them out. For some reason they love to destroy everything you are working on even though there are multiple other garden beds with nothing in and 1000s of square metres to scratch around in. The sun is still high enough in the sky it shouldn't make much difference. Good for reducing the wind, I think it is working pretty well.


View from the far side (south) of the fence.



These ones are the Habano 2000. Their leaf shapes are quite different with the left one having the usual leave shape and the right having skinny pointy leaves. Same with the Criollo98 a couple of rows back. One has the skinny leaves and one has the wider normal looking leaves. I noted the same in the previous batches I have grown of both varieties. Not sure if this is an environmental thing or if the seeds of two varieties are mixed in the same bags or a bit of genetic variation. Got them from NWSeeds in '24 so they should be all good and I have taken great care not to mix them up. From pics I have seen and what I have read, the Criollo 98 has a more skinny pointy leaf than the Habano 2000. Could be a deliberate act of sabotage perhaps but very unlikely. I guess only a puro taste test will tell. Not too worried as long as I end up with cigars that taste pretty good as I'm not too fussy on flavour.


Token shot of what is left in the raised garden. A few suckers, a new Havana 608 and Florida Sumatra, stalks with bagged flowers on top.

 

[Fleabag]

10th March 2026
Hey guys, not a huge amount going on and the daylight hours are reducing rapidly and overnight temps are dropping like a rock. I'm hoping for a few more weeks of somewhat warm weather last batch of baccy plants can get to full size. Not looking that promising. But, built a kiln, bagged some more dry leaves, picked some massive leaves and a few other things.

Last week I finally rangied up a kiln so I can speed age this seasons leaves and the ones that missed last seasons kilning session. It is very rough but is actually working pretty well. It's a rush job just to get something built, not my usual OCD work. Since I want to age the leaves flat in bags and not in jars like last time I was after a bunch of trays with a good mesh bottom to allow good air circulation. There were a couple at the local Mitre10 Mega store, one big one 550x335x75 for $11 and a bunch of smaller ones Number8 brand 545x250x60 for $4. The $4 ones had a horrible recycled plastic smell and had quite small gaps for the airflow. Looks like this:

Nice that they are cheap but I don't want to infect my tobacco with plastic smells.

I wanted at least 6 trays so cheap is good but the $11 unit didn't smell and has much better air flow potential. It is quite large which works out well for my half arsed design also. I got the one so I could work out the sizes and ended finding them from Egmont Commercial for $4 each so ordered another bunch so I would have extras. They will be handy for growing garlic korms out of the garden bed. The trays are a bit tall at 75mm so got band sawed down to 25mm. Still plenty of strength in them to hold some leaves.




I had some 30mm thick XPS left over from the long winded caravan reno project so basically went full width of the sheets for the internal height and based the width on large seedling tray. 30mm was a bit on the thin side so I doubled up the panels to make 60mm thick using some polyurethane glue. The door is a bit of 30mm the size of the opening with a larger bit stuck to it the full outside size. No hinges, no latches, no seals. Lazy rush job with two rubber bands and a couple of nails. I drew it in Solidworks to make sure it all worked out but then went full rangi on it. Should hold 8 trays all up. Currently only got 6 in there due to laziness and lack of will power to mount the fan properly.

Powering it is a battery inverter set up like a UPS in case there is a power cut. Heater is two 200x200 heat beds from my old 3D printer powered by the 3D printer controller. which pull about 350W when heating up from cold. They have the PID control which keeps them pretty much at the exact same temperature non stop which makes setting a temp pretty easy and there is the hot end termistor that tells the temp in the main chamber. Would be good if I knew a bit of programming so I could set it up so it used the chamber heat to control the heat beds, not the thermister on the heat beds. With the ambient temp at the mo, setting them to 62°C heats the chamber to 48-50°C in about an hour and keeps it there very consistent. As it cools off at night it drops a couple of degrees so I just up the temp of the beds up a couple and then bring them back in the morning. It's been running for about a week and seems to be working quite well. On average it is using under 70W so about $15NZD a month but I have some solar panels I may hook up just for fun to save a bit of power.


To house my leaves I am using basic PE ziploc bags which aren't vapor proof so there is a slight issue as the leaves were drying out about 10% over 24 hours. It's not a major but I stuck a small bowl of water between the heat beds which keeps it around 70% inside and reduces the drying effect. There are a couple of temp/hydrometers located in a couple of the bags and one in the main chamber to monitor the situation via bluetooth and a PC fan up top to keep air moving and consistent. So far so good, no mould growth and seemingly even heating.




The fan just hangs there and does its thing. If it touches the XPS it vibrates and the whole thing resonates the amplified fan noise throughout the house. Not ideal so isolated it with the rubber bands and hardly know it's there. I intended to cover the inside with foil to help keep the heat in but forgot in my haste. May do it before next season but it is working pretty good as it is. No plastic smells coming out even though the XPS is raw, it should have off gassed anything that was still in there in the last 9 years it has been kicking around in storage.

I do see one major problem with it though. How the flip to I fit this in there? I know leaves shrink quite a bit but this Havana 608 leaf is over 33 inches long lol.


I went through and harvested all of the leaves from the second planting of the first batch of seedlings, 9 plants and the Havana leaves are huge. Got another potential storm coming and most of the leaves have some signs of starting to yellow so I thought I would pull them and not take the chance. Some others I picked about two weeks too soon are yellowing up finally, just took about the same amount of time as if they were still on the plant. These ones I have been pile curing between towels for a few weeks.


Left the stalks in still as I may allow a couple to sucker and flower. There is some weird anomaly with the leaf shape as mentioned in an earlier post I want to figure out. I'l write a bit more about that later.


The second batch of seedlings is coming along pretty well. A wee bit behind last season and with the temps dropping already I'm wondering if they will reach full size. Hopefully they will, last seasons ones were quite mature when I harvested them early in April but they had 10 days on these ones.


The second batch of trailer tobacco are coming along pretty well too. Much less yellow than the first bunch so the extra nutrients must be working. I'll give them a good top up in a week or so to help them along a bit more.


After all my hard work plucking leaves and stacking them I lit up a cigar I rolled two months back. It was quite enjoyable. Havana/Habano/Criollo mix with Criollo wrapper, taste in the ball park of what I seem to like and burned with a nice big ash.

 

[Fleabag]

Right, to the anomaly that I'm wanting to somewhat figure out. Very evident when the leaves are picked and stacked. Let me know if you can help figure this out.

I took great care not to mix up seeds or labels throughout the growing process and each seedling had its place in the green house and next to no chance of being tampered with.

These leaves below are in theory Criollo 98. Left plant has pointy skinny leaves and right plant has more rounded shape leaves.


This next pic is the Habano 2000. Left plant has rounded leaves and right one has pointy skinny leaves.


Hypothetically if you were growing Criollo 98 and Habano 2000 and someone tampered with your labels which of these leaf types would be Criollo 98 and which one Habano 2000?

It is my understanding that there isn't much variation in a certain variety of tobacco since they are self pollinated for generations. Not like those crazy tall corn Bob was growing which were hugely variable. Is this correct or can there be this much variation in one type? I can instantly tell the Havana 608s apart and somewhat the Florida Sumatras. They both seem to stick to what they should look and grow like. If anything the rounder ones look more like FS. They are so distinct I can't help but think they are different varieties.

I can only find a few pics online (NWT etc) and it kind of looks like the Criollo 98 has the pointy leaves, more so than the rounded ones above.




The pics of Habano 2000 are few and far between but these ones don't look much different.



In fact, the couple of Habano 2000 I grew last season look to have pointy leaves and the Criollo look to have roundish leaves. The others I grew last season didn't really get large enough to have distinct shape differences.


This is when they were a bit more mature from the other side.


Not a large sample size. I took great care when starting my seeds and when planting out the seedlings and even more extreme care with the last batch. Seeds were from NWTSeeds and are still in their original bags and haven't been mixed up this side. Chance of the nieces tampering with labels is close to zero, they have zero interest in the garden or green house.

The first batch this season wasn't that great as all of the plants were underwhelming due to lack of nutrients and most of the leaves were skinny. The last batch are all a bit small to really tell the difference, apart from the Havana 608s.

If anything obvious sticks out or if there are any other identifying features that I should look for in the Habano and Criollo please let me know .

If it's not obvious then I will stick to my plan of curing and kilning these ones separately and well labeled and do puro taste testing to see if I can tell from taste. I'll take seeds from each of the offending plants too so I know exactly what they came from next season.

Any help appreciated!

 

[deluxestogie]

It is my understanding that there isn't much variation in a certain variety of tobacco since they are self pollinated for generations.

Only if the bud heads were properly bagged prior to the blossoms opening.

Bob

 

[Fleabag]

I would hope the plants that the NWT seeds came from were indeed bagged. I'm not growing from my own seeds just yet.

Had a look at the latest batch of plants this morning since it got a bit rough with the crap bit of weather that came through. A couple have formed an S bend when they got smashed but all are shooting away. Sun is out, humid and hot. Would be good if it was like this for a few more weeks.

I can see the distinct different leaf shapes in these ones already.

In this batch there is a 0% chance I mixed up the seeds when starting them. 0% chance they got mixed up when being planted into the small bags and 0% chance they had the labels changed while in the hydro gutter. When I planted them I only took out the exact variety required from the green house so no mix ups there.

I plant Havana 608 to the north (row on the left) followed by Criollo 98, Florida Sumatra and finally Habano 2000 to the south. Just in case the tags get removed I will know what they are regardless. Havana 608s all look similar, the Florida Sumatra all look similar. Criollo and Habano again have two distinct types in each row. Some with narrow leaves and some with rounded leaves. Does Criollo normally have narrow or round leaves? Does Habano 2000 normally have narrow or round leaves?

Here are a couple of pics edited with paint.





If the narrow leaves taste the same as the rounded ones of each respective variety then I guess there are two different leaf shape types of Criollo 98 and Habano 2000. Surely that can't be the case... The mind boggles.

 

[deluxestogie]

Compare the following, between the two differing leaf shapes:

• Angle between the secondary veins, where they join the primary leaf vein (use a protractor, and expect 5%+ error, even with careful measurements)
• Angle between the primary leaf vein and the plant stalk
• Serration or lack of serration along the leaf margin

If these are significantly different between the "pointy" and the "rounded", then I would assume (in identical conditions) that they are different varieties. Having so few of each named variety makes this statistically more challenging.

Bob

 

[Fleabag]

Been a few weeks, pretty busy so haven't been on to update. Weather cooled down a lot for a couple of weeks but then warmed up again, with a 2 day storm to spice things up. Not ideal and lost a good amount of my remaining plants.

17th March 2026

Got a couple of pics of the leaf difference side by side. This is the Criollo 98 pointy (left) vs round. Picked same time. Stem thickness about the same.



The ones I grabbed to show the Habano 2000 difference aren't quite as different. Some of the others are quite different. Habano 2000 below. Pointy type on left.



The two round leaf plants in question had some small necrosis spots on the lower leaves where the pointy ones didn't. I have noticed that on the round leaf ones currently still in the garden. Also noted that the pointy ones grow more in a V shape and will veer off in one direction where the other type leaves grow pretty much flat. Got these ones hung and cured, the round ones dried so they are in the kiln. The pointy ones are browning but still damp. So different in pretty much all aspects of the plant, can't wait till they are kilned so I can taste test them.

The last batch that are still in the garden are getting bigger real quick. Went through and topped the ones that were starting to produce flower heads. Looking really good during the day time, this pic was taken later in the day.


28th March 2026

Had some weather come through for a couple of days. Wind from the NE which is the least protected direction for the remaining plants. The wind wasn't anything too crazy but the gusts that came through were destructive though not as bad as the cyclone last month. The rain was constant and had soaked the ground so my wind break poles kind of just pushed over resulting in doing practically nothing. I should have moved the north shield closer to the plants and made sure it was in firm but it's a bit late now. Not quite total destruction, there are two, maybe three plants that only had a couple of leaves broken. The others are half toast. Some had the tops snapped clean off, the rest were flattened with half the leaves broken or removed completely.

I staked the Criollo 98 on the far left before I took the pic, you can see it did a fair bit of growing vertical on the ground. Another couple of weeks and they would have been looking so good! Great disappointment. Good thing I had already harvested 24 semi reasonable plants from the first trailer batch and then the other 6 or so from the random raised bed ones and then the 10 plants from batch 1B from this same garden. Plenty to keep me going. If these are totaled again.



After attempting to get the stems vertical. As you can see they are bent 90° pretty bad.




29th March 2026

Went out to have a look at the plants were starting to straighten up and they are looking ok. Pretty sad but happy to be alive perhaps. For now... The ones in the trailer are about half the size, guessing the position of them is too shaded now or they just hate growing in pots even though there is plenty of nutrient and water. The ones in the ground just seem to be far larger.






How the heck does a stem that thick just snap off?


I have left the stalks from the first ones in this garden and the suckers on some are looking pretty good, might get a bit of bonus baccy to make up for the other losses.


The few I planted in the raised garden are doing pretty well too. New Havana 608 in the centre looking well, the far right Havana is a sucker from the previous stalk, it's growing pretty good. One of the big suckers that was about 3 foot tall got snapped off so I hung up the whole stalk. Got a Florida Sumatra looking good at the back with a nice looking Habano 2000 at the far left.


The one below is a Criollo 98 sucker that snapped off a couple of weeks ago randomly. I jammed it in the ground and it went limp for a few days and has now rooted and is actually growing. Pretty interesting. The purslane has fully taken over the garden which is cool, it's a nice garden snack while tending the tobacco.


Here is a view from south side of the smashed tobaccos


I'm liking the diy 3D printer kiln, it is keeping temp well and it smells really good when opened up to add some more water to keep the humidity up. Few air leaks around the door for excess moisture to escape so its not soggy in there. It's nice having the leaves stacked and flat ready to roll. I pulled out a few of the dubious Criollo 98 pack that had dried with green spots on them. They were looking pretty dang good and once cooled became nice and dry ready to roll a proper cigar using whole leaf. It was my first time actually being able to bunch the leaves and then rip them in half and flip them around, give them a good squeeze, adjust the bunch and wrap it like a real cigar. It turned out pretty good, a bit lumpy but good. Draw was a bit tight but it tasted good for the few draws I had. I then accidentally dropped it in a bucket of water which didn't help the burn. I didn't even get a pic of it but it looked like a cigar somewhat until then.

Got no idea how I'm going to fit the Havana 608 leaves in there. They have shrunk from 33" down to 28" so far but I don't even have any bags that will fit them. Might have to fold them in half.

 

[Fleabag]

Got some more rain on the way and then wind from the west tomorrow. Hopefully my west wind break holds up this time. Then the rest of the week looks pretty nice so hopefully enough time for the remaining plants to do their thing and get nice and ripe.

I had to try whole leaf rolling again asap so pulled out a few Florida Sumatra leaves that were in the kiln, somewhat dubious and had some green spots so I kept them separate from all the nice ones. They mostly also looked pretty good though some were still yellow with green spots. The ones I picked were the brownest of the lot. Good for practice rolling and it was a nice evening for a cigar. I pulled out a Havana 608 ligero from last seasons leaves and stuck that in the middle for good measure too. I backed off the tightness of the roll since my last one was a bit tight and this one ended up being a bit loose and soft. Still trying to get the hang of what way the leaf goes around when you roll it, I seem to get it out of sync so the binder unravels when I'm adding the wrapper. Guessing I need to roll both in the same orientation using the wrapper leaf as the guide for what way around the binder goes.







Super easy draw and was actually quite flavoursome, previous FS cigars I have rolled have been a bit boring. Loads of smoke, nice big ash, uneven burn but not bad. Didn't get dropped into a bucket of water after 5 puffs. Nic started to kick in in the last few inches but it had got a bit damp by then and was not burning as good so ended it there. It had a bit of that green flavour as expected since it was so fresh but overall it was still more enjoyable than the Macanudo Maduro Diplomat I had the other day. $64NZD vs a bit of gardening and curing leaf management for almost $0. Home made comes out on top this time.

 

[Wombat_smokes]

Qué sera, sera (What will be, will be)
Insh'allah (God willing)
Mafi Mushkila (No problem)

Sometimes, it is what it is. I agree that the leaf morphology is interesting, but they most likely are the same varieties. I have a Shargo that looks quite odd from its brother's (only some 3 weeks old). You're doing good, mate! I hope my grow goes as well as yours.

PS - fingers crossed the wind breaks hold & no further damage is caused.

 

[Fleabag]

Thanks Wombat!

Survived the wind today and now we have reasonable weather for the week. Predictions show another massive cyclone coming down from the islands around the 8th-9th April. If it actually eventuates that's anyone's guess but if it does I'll probably harvest whatever is looking somewhat mature this time next week. Pretty annoying having to harvest before the leaves get nice and ripe on the plant but what can you do. At 300m up we get slammed quite a bit more than it shows on the map.



There are still plenty of good leaves kicking around in the bunch.


Rolled another actual cigar from some super yellow leaves of the dodgy Florida Sumatra.




It was more of a comedy cigar to see how bad really fresh leaves are. It was pretty bad but still fun!

 

[JungleGhost]

Nice!

 

[ExSmoker]

It was more of a comedy cigar to see how bad really fresh leaves are. It was pretty bad but still fun!

same sort of thing here lol, i grew my first lot this season and as you can imagine i have no bearing on whats good when etc.. i took a puff of the virginia that come out of the hot/yellow room about 5 weeks ago, coughed my ring out. harshness test results acheived.

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to the forum, @ExSmoker. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum.

Bob